Perfect day for a blessing

We had the most perfect day on Saturday, April 11 for a bike blessing. The day started with an indication from our teen-age daughter that she wanted to accompany us, which is a blessing in itself since she does a lot of her “own thing” these days. The weather was cool but beautiful – sunny and about 45 degrees when we left at 9:30, and near 60 by the time we came home.

We met up on the south side of town and ended up with a great group, many of whom we hadn’t seen all winter. The group included myself, hubby Steve and daughter Stephanie, and friends Kristin, Austin, Nate, Howard (toting his awesome biker-dog Einstein), Jenn with Amy’s mom, and Amy with her daughter.

We took a very simple but pretty ride down to Route 65 Harley Davidson in Indianola, and while there met up with Garry & Shirley. We arrived with about half an hour before the scheduled activities, but at the appointed time gathered outside for a group prayer, and then dispersed to our bikes where we awaited a member of the Christian Motorcycle Association (CMA). The CMA members walked from group to group, inviting bikers to ask for specific prayers or just a general blessing. I always like the part of this annual ritual where they ask for help in keeping the road ahead clear – it feels a little selfish asking God to “bless my bike,” but somehow asking Him to help me see and navigate obstacles, and to always be aware, feels more worthy.

After our small-group blessing, we enjoyed a lunch of chili and desserts courtesy of CMA, then decided to take a scenic route home.

We left Route 65 HD and headed to Carlisle so Garry & Shirley could give their dog Buddy a potty break; a couple of our group took off for home from here. Then we took a short ride down Highway 5 to the 316 turn-off to Runnells. This is a really interesting road – the road cuts through low-lying land surrounding the Des Moines River, and since last summer’s flooding it had obviously spent most of the past 8 months under water. Train tracks and a very old bridge ran along our left side, and on the right we could really see how much land had been affected by the flood.

A left turn just outside of Runnells put us onto what would become SE Vandalia Road, so we took that on into Des Moines. Steve, Steph and I arrived home about 2:30 p.m. Here’s the Webshots album with the photos I snapped.

It was a beautiful day and beautiful ride, marking the “official beginning” of the ride season here. As an extra special treat, Howard managed to snap several very nice pictures of Stephanie enjoying her day – including the one above showing her on the back of Dad’s Heritage Softail Classic.